WWII

Question 1

What political factors(2) contributed to Japan’s aggression?

Answer 1

Paramilitary groups grew 1920s
Angry with direction of country = westernization
Undermined governments control
Forcibly took over Manchuria
Left league of Nations over it

Question 2

What economic factors(2) contributed to Japan’s aggression?

Answer 2

Needed more territory to remain industrial strong
economic inequality growing
concentration of wealth in zaibatsu
Concentration of industry to one family
rapidly growing population
Inflation /food prices = food riots, food shortage

Question 3

What social factors (2) contributed to Japan’s aggression?

Answer 3

Japanese people demanded a return to traditional ideas in education/ politics
Wanted to focus on becoming dominating force in Asia
Did not want to cooperate with the West
Purge all western culture

Question 4

How did the second Sino-Japanese start ?

Answer 4

Chinese and Japanese forces clashed south of Beijing at the Marco Polo Bridge.
escalated into a full-scale Japanese invasion and the start

Question 5

What was the Rape of Nanking

Answer 5

As the Japanese took the city of Nanking, they killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in brutal ways.

Question 6

What was the first step towards war Hitler took?

Answer 6

He started rebuilding his military and stopped paying reparations

Question 7

What was important about Hitler and the Rhineland?

Answer 7

Put his military in the region between France and Germany that was taken away from Germany in Treaty

Question 8

How did Hitler take over Austria?

Answer 8

Through a “fair vote”. He placed his military there and forced their government to vote to combine with Germany

Question 9

What was the outcome of the Munich conference? Why was it convened?

Answer 9

The allies meet with Hitler to try and stop him from expanding more. Hitler promised that he would stop after he took over the sudetenland( portion of czechoslovakia that has a lot of German citizens)

Question 10

Why did Hitler/ Germans want the above things?

Answer 10

He wanted to make Germany powerful again, expand their living space, and combine all the German speaking people into one empire.

Question 11

What is appeasement?

Answer 11

diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict.

Question 12

What are the four reasons why Europe allowed appeasement?

Answer 12

-The Allied Powers were in the depths of the Great Depression, and did not have the money to be involved in another war.

-The memory of World War 1 was still fresh, and none of the world wanted to do that again.

They were trying to convince themselves that Hitler’s demands were reasonable, and hoped he would be satisfied if he got what he wanted

The militaries of the Allied countries were still recovering from WW1

Question 13

What were 4 consequences of appeasement for the Allies?

Answer 13

Allowed Hitler to control a larger population to use as an army

Allowed Hitler to control a more people to tax and gather wealth from

Made Hitler seem invincible to his own people, so they bought into him as a leader

Allowed the Germans to control areas with tons of resources like iron, coal, and agricultural land

Question 14

What was the Non-aggression pact? Why did Hitler want this?

Answer 14

Hitler made a pact with Stalin and USSR- to not fight each other and instead share Poland and divide it in half.

He did not want to fight in a two-front war

Question 15

What event started WWII? Why.

Answer 15

Hitler invading Poland- the allies promised to protect and defend Poland from Hitler

Question 16

What is blitzkrieg? How did it work?

Answer 16

Means LIGHTNING war
Used BOMBERS, followed by TANKS, and waves of TROOPS, all without any WARNING to penetrate the other line

Question 17

Dunkirk (both negative and positive)

Answer 17

Germany surrounded the FRENCH army, who retreated to the city of DUNKIRK in NORTHERN FRANCE, on the coast of the ENGLISH CHANNEL
The British NAVY and CIVILIANS sent a total of 850 ships and boats to ferry the troops to BRITAIN
Saved 338,000 Allied soldiers, but left France UNDEFENDED
Fell to Hitler after 1 week, but soldiers and britain used for D’DAY

Question 18

Battle of Britain

Answer 18

Plan was to take out AIR FORCE, and then BOMB cities
Couldn’t INVADE because it’s an ISLAND
Thought this would DEMORALIZE the British so they would GIVE UP
British developed RADAR, which helped them win the AIR BATTLE (called the Battle of BRITAIN and lasts for 1 year) as well as WITHSTAND the bombings
Hitler eventually GAVE UP on Britain

Question 19

Stalingrad

Answer 19

Stalingrad was a major INDUSTRIAL, COMMUNICATION, and TRANSPORTATION center and near huge OIL fields
bloodiest battle in WW2
Bombing raids nightly= destroyed city
Hand to hand combat
No retreat orders
turning point for the war in the East.
From this point on, Hitler’s armies were pushed back into Germany.

Question 20

Pearl Harbor

Answer 20

Japan’s surprise attack on the United States harbor military ships. They were angry about the US trying to limit their expansion in Asia. This brought America into the war.

Question 21

D-day

Answer 21

The Allied Powers (BRITAIN, FRANCE, and the US) brought together 3.5 MILLION troops in BRITAIN to invade GERMANY
JUNE 6, 1944 – Called D-DAY
Even with huge CASUALTIES, the Allies hung onto the BEACHES in France, which allowed another MILLION TROOPS and SUPPLIES to land
This put the Nazi armies into a 2-FRONT war they began to be OVERWHELMED by the RUSSIANS in the EAST and the ALLIES in the WEST

Question 22

Battle of the Bulge

Answer 22

American soldiers vs German -Last try for Hitler
Cold weather set back for allies , Large losses for allies
HItler Was not able to stop the allies, Nazis fell shortly after

Question 23

Who are the allies?

Answer 23

Britain, france, United States, Soviet Union, China

Question 24

Who are the Axis Powers?

Answer 24

Japan, Germany, Italy

Question 25

When does the European Front end? ( How does it end)

Answer 25

Hitler committed suicide as Russia was coming into Berlin after he lost Battle of Bulge

Question 26

What two cities does the US drop Atomic Bombs on?

Answer 26

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Question 27

Why did the US drop the atomic bomb?( 3 reasons)

Answer 27

The invasion of Japan would have been costly in terms of lives, both Japanese and American

We wanted to show off our new weapons to the Soviets as a show of our power.

Knew the Japanese would not surrender easily without forced

Question 28

What decisions were made at the Potsdam / Yalta Conference?

Answer 28

Split Europe into two
East- Communist controlled
West- Democratic and capitalist controlled

Question 29

What was the purpose of the Nuremberg Trials?

Answer 29

Attempted to bring justice to the Nazi LEADERSHIP in Germany
Run by the United Nations
Important step towards having an international court to prosecute war crimes and “crimes against humanity”

Question 30

Why were the Nuremberg Trials important for German people?

Answer 30

Helped show the German citizens the atrocities of Hitler and Nazis

Question 31

What are the major functions of the United Nations

Answer 31

general Assembly
All countries have a vote in world affairs

Economic and Social
Gives loans to developing countries

Deals with disease outbreaks and health

Helps children in developing countries

Security Council
Can step into conflicts in countries to stop them from escalating into war

Question 32

How did Japan change after World War 2?

Answer 32

The United States took CONTROL of Japan
Forced it to DEMILITARIZE
Lost all COLONIES
EMPEROR had to admit he was not a GOD- but was allowed to stay in power to help transition to democracy
Tokyo trials- convinced war criminals
Became ALLIES with the US during the COLD WAR